Electronic devices commonly have some type of bulk storage device available to them. A common example is a hard disk drive (HDD). HDDs are capable of large amounts of storage at relatively low cost, with current consumer HDDs available with over one terabyte of capacity.
HDDs generally store data on rotating magnetic media or platters. Data is typically stored as a pattern of magnetic flux reversals on the platters. To write data to a typical HDD, the platter is rotated at high speed while a write head floating above the platter generates a series of magnetic pulses to align magnetic particles on the platter to represent the data. To read data from a typical HDD, resistance changes are induced in a magnetoresistive read head as it floats above the platter rotated at high speed. In practice, the resulting data signal is an analog signal whose peaks and valleys are the result of the magnetic flux reversals of the data pattern. Digital signal processing techniques called partial response maximum likelihood (PRML) are then used to sample the analog data signal to determine the likely data pattern responsible for generating the data signal.
HDDs have certain drawbacks due to their mechanical nature. HDDs are susceptible to damage or excessive read/write errors due to shock, vibration or strong magnetic fields. In addition, they are relatively large users of power in portable electronic devices.
Another example of a bulk storage device is a solid state drive (SSD). Instead of storing data on rotating media, SSDs utilize semiconductor memory devices to store their data, but often include an interface and form factor making them appear to their host system as if they are a typical HDD. The memory devices of SSDs are typically non-volatile flash memory devices.
Flash memory devices have developed into a popular source of non-volatile memory for a wide range of electronic applications. Flash memory devices typically use a one-transistor memory cell that allows for high memory densities, high reliability, and low power consumption. Changes in threshold voltage of the cells, through programming of charge storage nodes (e.g., floating gates or trapping layers) or other physical phenomena (e.g., phase change or polarization), determine the data value of each cell. Common uses for flash memory and other non-volatile memory include personal computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), digital cameras, digital media players, digital recorders, games, appliances, vehicles, wireless devices, mobile telephones, and removable memory modules, and the uses for non-volatile memory continue to expand.
Unlike HDDs, the operation of SSDs is generally not subject to vibration, shock or magnetic field concerns due to their solid state nature. Similarly, without moving parts, SSDs have lower power requirements than HDDs. However, SSDs currently have much lower storage capacities compared to HDDs of the same form factor and a significantly higher cost for equivalent storage capacities.
Due to the nature of flash memory devices, the physical location within a flash memory device for a given logical address will generally change over time. To address this changing correspondence, a Flash Translation Layer (FTL) is used to map the logical address to the physical address to which data has been stored. Although this high-level mapping information is often held in volatile memory for ease of use during operation of the memory device, such mapping information is periodically stored to non-volatile memory so that it may be retrieved during start-up of the device. Alternatively, this mapping information may be updated to non-volatile storage with each write operation. If an SSD is powered down abruptly, such that the most recent mapping information has not been stored to non-volatile memory, every valid page of the memory devices forming the SSD is scanned to re-build the relationship between logical addresses and current physical addresses. This scanning can take a significant amount of time, during which the SSD is unavailable to the host.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for alternative bulk storage options.